Pass rate
Below average — 4.1 pts behind the 73.8% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 759 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £72–£193
Pass rate
Below average — 4.1 pts behind the 73.8% that cars this age and mileage manage.
Across 759 recorded tests.
Typical repair bill £72–£193
Most common fault
Suspension
34.2% of faults · 21.0% nationally
mostly worn arm bushes, split ball-joint boots and broken coil springs.
Part only £35–£75 for Suspension pin or bush excessively worn. What fitting it takes →
18.6 pts down across model years — 22.0% in 2001, 3.4% in 2016.
Which year to buy
Across the 20 years on record, a spread of 26.4 points. See every year →
The 2000 Ford Ka MOT pass rate is 69.7% of its MOT tests — 4.1 points behind what its age and mileage predict. Suspension is the biggest single reason it fails, at 34.2% of what testers record.
Expert verdict
Suspension accounts for 34.2% of everything recorded on the 2000 Ford Ka, against 21.0% nationally — 13.2 points above. Ask for the front and rear suspension to be checked on a ramp before you buy — worn bushes and broken springs are cheap to look at and expensive to discover at test time.
Written from this page's own figures: fault shares against the national composition, the like-for-like pass rate, and the priced repair list. How these are worked out
Watching a Ford Ka? Get an email when these numbers change .
Cars of this age and mileage average 73.8%, so this figure is 4.1 points behind what its age and mileage predict. On a first attempt, before any retests, the figure drops to 62.2%. The median 2000 Ford Ka in this dataset had covered 42,906 mi.
Pass rates also shift with the test month: tests recorded October–March passed 70.1% of the time, April–September 69.3%.
The single most recorded failure item is "Component mounting prescribed areas prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength", noted on 10.67% of tests.
Figures count every completed test on this vehicle-year in the dataset, including retests. See methodology for the exact definition.
Source: DVSA anonymised MOT test data (2023–2025), OGL v3.0.
Corrosion Welding Repair
Typically a garage job — get quotes before committing.
Pass rate by odometer reading. Bar lengths start at 55% so small gaps stay visible.
Across all Ka model years on record (2000–2019): 253,674 Ford Ka cars tested in a recordable postcode area, across 655,731 tests. Birmingham (B) has the most, with 8,526 cars tested there. Cars are counted by the postcode area of the MOT station, so this is where they were tested, not necessarily where their owners live.
| # | Postcode area | Cars | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Birmingham (B) | 8,526 | 79.9% |
| 2 | Sheffield (S) | 5,823 | 79.8% |
| 3 | Cardiff (CF) | 5,618 | 74.4% |
| 4 | Nottingham (NG) | 5,150 | 75.7% |
| 5 | Leicester (LE) | 4,977 | 80.4% |
| 6 | Bristol (BS) | 4,861 | 74.1% |
| 7 | Chelmsford (CM) | 4,617 | 80.8% |
| 8 | Basildon (SS) | 4,434 | 81.1% |
| 9 | Newcastle upon Tyne (NE) | 4,214 | 78.2% |
| 10 | Manchester (M) | 3,981 | 78.3% |
| 11 | Peterborough (PE) | 3,967 | 80.2% |
| 12 | Portsmouth (PO) | 3,930 | 76.3% |
| 13 | Norwich (NR) | 3,848 | 79.7% |
| 14 | Maidstone (ME) | 3,809 | 80.5% |
| 15 | Liverpool (L) | 3,781 | 79.4% |
| 16 | Derby (DE) | 3,751 | 79.2% |
| 17 | Coventry (CV) | 3,719 | 78.4% |
| 18 | Ashford (TN) | 3,568 | 79.3% |
| 19 | Romford (RM) | 3,508 | 85.0% |
| 20 | Doncaster (DN) | 3,455 | 78.6% |
The twenty areas with the most Ford Ka cars in the record, sorted by car count — sort the columns for a different question. Cars tested at a station whose postcode area could not be resolved are counted in the model's total but in no area, so the shares add up to slightly under 100% even across every area, and an area's cars are a subset of the model's. Pass rate is blank below 30 tests in an area, where a percentage is noise rather than a finding. How this model's pass rate varies by postcode →
| Region | Tests | Pass rate |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 232 | 73.7% |
| East of England | 112 | 69.6% |
| South West | 105 | 64.8% |
| East Midlands | 86 | 64.0% |
| West Midlands | 72 | 59.7% |
| North West | 46 | 78.3% |
| Wales | 33 | 57.6% |
| London | 31 | 80.6% |
| Yorkshire | 19 | 78.9% |
Regions come from the postcode area recorded at the test station. Areas on region borders are assigned to the region with the majority of their population.
Everything a tester recorded on this vehicle, grouped into the inspection sections that produced it. The notch on each bar is the national share, so you can see at a glance whether this car is unusual or just ordinary.
A test can record several items, so these percentages do not add up to 100%. The exact strings, with prices, are in the full DVSA record at the bottom of this page.
Before your test
These are not generic tips — they are the faults recorded most often on this exact model, rewritten as things you can check yourself. All three take about ten minutes and cost nothing.
Check corrosion 10.7% of tests
“component mounting prescribed areas prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength”
Look under the sills, around the jacking points and where the suspension mounts meet the body. Flaking, holed or crumbly metal fails; a brown stain on sound metal does not.
Check the suspension joints 8.0% of tests
“pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn”
With the car parked on level ground, rock the top of each front wheel in and out while someone watches the suspension arm. Clunks, or rubber boots split and greasy, are what testers record here.
Check the battery 3.0% of tests
“battery(ies) insecure”
Check the battery is secure and its terminals are clean and tight — a loose battery is a fail on its own, and a weak one shows up as slow cranking on a cold morning.
Shares are the proportion of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item, so they overlap: one test can record several.
Across the 10 items that are recorded most often on this model, the average repair comes to £72–£193 — and 12% of those repairs are parts that cost under £30.
Estimates from typical UK parts prices, weighted by how often each item appears in 759 MOT tests on this vehicle. They exclude diagnostics, retest fees and garage labour where the part is a DIY fit, and they are not figures from the DVSA dataset. Older and higher-mileage examples cost more than the average. How these estimates are built → · All MOT repair costs → · Cheapest cars to put through a test →
20 model years on record, from 2000 to 2019. Across them the pass rate runs from 66.2% to 92.6% — a spread of 26.4 points. The bar under each year is the item that failed it most often.
Colour is the pass rate on a fixed scale, so a block means the same thing on any model. Each year links to its own page with the full fault breakdown.
The raw pass rate mostly measures age. The year comparison adds the like-for-like figure, the mileage bands and the repair bill.
Closest pass rates among 2000 cars with at least 2,000 tests, so a small sample cannot flatter itself into the list. See the full rankings: best and worst MOT pass rates.
Shares of the 2,201 individual items recorded on this vehicle, and the same share across all cars nationally. A single test can record several items, so a row is not a percentage of tests.
| Category | Items | This car | Nationally | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suspension | 776 | 34.20% | 20.98% | +13.22 |
| Brakes | 406 | 17.90% | 20.89% | −2.99 |
| Tyres | 227 | 10.00% | 19.76% | −9.76 |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 182 | 8.00% | 12.21% | −4.21 |
| Body, chassis, structure | 144 | 6.40% | 5.57% | +0.83 |
| Steering | 111 | 4.90% | 2.57% | +2.33 |
| Noise, emissions and leaks | 107 | 4.70% | 5.52% | −0.82 |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 100 | 4.40% | 0.82% | +3.58 |
| Visibility | 80 | 3.50% | 4.97% | −1.47 |
| Identification of the vehicle | 68 | 3.00% | 1.76% | +1.24 |
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Component mounting prescribed areas prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength Suspension | Major | 10.7% | £180–450 |
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Major | 8.0% | £40–150 |
| Prescribed areas prescribed area strength or continuity significantly reduced Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | Major | 7.9% | £40–120 |
| Battery(ies) insecure but not likely to fall from carrier Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 3.0% | £60–140 |
| Headlamp lens slightly defective Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Minor | 2.6% | £5–25 |
| Service brake imbalance across an axle Brakes | Major | 2.6% | £45–110 |
| Wipers does not clear the windscreen effectively Visibility | Major | 2.6% | £8–22 |
| Shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak Suspension | Major | 2.5% | £30–75 |
| Headlamp aim projected beam image is obviously incorrect Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | Major | 2.2% | £30–80 |
| Windscreen damaged but not adversely affecting driver's view Visibility | Minor | 2.1% | £80–200 |
Severity is as recorded: Major and Dangerous fail the test outright; Minor and Advisory do not. Costs are estimates from typical UK parts prices — see how they are built.
Advisories are the early warnings — the same parts a year or two before they fail. Reading them is how you tell a car that has been maintained from one that has been patched.
| Recorded item | Severity | Tests | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn Suspension | Advisory | 29.8% | £40–150 |
| Component mounting prescribed areas prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength Suspension | Advisory | 14.8% | £180–450 |
| Flexible brake hoses excessively deteriorated Brakes | Advisory | 14.1% | £25–70 |
| Has a tear, caused by separation or partial failure of its structure Tyres | Advisory | 13.6% | £45–95 |
| Engine oil leaks leaking excessively from engine Noise, emissions and leaks | Advisory | 12.0% | £200–700 |
| Tread depth below requirements of 1.6mm Tyres | Advisory | 11.2% | £45–95 |
| Mileage | Tests | Pass rate | Median odometer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-30k | 177 | 74.0% | 20,866 mi |
| 30-60k | 400 | 70.3% | 44,462 mi |
| 60-90k | 165 | 63.0% | 72,230 mi |
| 90-120k | 14 | 71.4% | 94,149 mi |
Source: 759 recorded tests on this vehicle-year. Every row above is recomputed from the same DVSA extract as the rest of the page — see the methodology.
69.7% of the 759 2000 Ford Ka tests in this dataset passed, against a national average of 73.8% for cars first used in 2000. First-attempt pass rate: 62.2%.
The three most recorded items are component mounting prescribed areas prescribed area excessively corroded significantly reducing structural strength (10.67%), pins and bushes pin or bush excessively worn (8.04%), prescribed areas prescribed area strength or continuity significantly reduced (7.91%). Percentages are the share of tests on this vehicle that recorded the item.
Yes. Cars under 30,000 miles passed 74.0% of the time, falling to 71.4% for those over 120,000 miles. The median 2000 Ford Ka in this dataset had covered 42,906 mi.
Tests recorded in the winter months (October–March) passed 70.1% of the time; summer months (April–September) passed 69.3%. Brakes, tyres and lights are tested harder in bad weather, but the difference is small on most models.